The Great Leader

by Jim Harrison (Grove; $24)

Harrison’s novel follows a longtime Michigan State Police detective whose hobby in retirement is tracking down the founder of a religious cult—the Great Leader of the title. “I’m investigating the evil connection between religion, money, and sex,” he jokes. Harrison, a poet and novelist who has written with subtlety about many of the hidden corners of America, is less interested in his torn-from-the-headlines plot than in the quirks of his dyspeptic, lecherous, and gouty detective, whose “shit-stained” view of life drove his wife away, and who can’t help getting turned on by every woman he sees. The result is an enjoyable if self-indulgent literary detective novel. The best moments come when the detective loses the trail and looks up to find, in Harrison’s precise and powerful descriptions, the landscapes that surround him, where religion, money, and sex disappear, and “a creek is more powerful than despair.” ♦

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